


nothing but time

by ofhobbitsandwomen (litvirg)



Series: got a hold on me [4]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, Coda, F/M, Kissing, bc i have a selfish!cassian kink and im not gonna hide it anymore, missing make outs, who's ready for kissing and sadness amiright
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 14:08:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9444788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/litvirg/pseuds/ofhobbitsandwomen
Summary: "And when she pulled the lever, the voice above their heads repeating “transmitting” over and over again until the job was done, there was the barest moment when a strange and foreign word floated into Cassian’s mind. Free."another missing make out scene this time ft. the elevator.





	

Cassian heard the words before he saw the twisted mouth they fell from. 

“I’ve lost nothing but time,” the man in white said. Jyn stood opposite him, sweaty hair plastered to her face. Her eyes narrowed on the man who had taken her father from her. He could see her mind turning, but Krennic’s arm raised his blaster faster than she could move away.  “You, on the other hand, will die with the rebellion.” 

It wasn’t even a thought and his hand was up, blaster pointed out, and he stood there watching Krennic fall. It was less than he deserved, Cassian thought. He deserved to go back to his superior officers, knowing he failed. He deserved to watch the flaw in his life’s work be exposed to every corner of the universe. He deserved to have to answer for it from the cruelest hands in the galaxy. 

He fell and Cassian knew Jyn would have wished a darker end for the man who stole everything from her. 

But as quick as he was down, Cassian’s thoughts were turned back to Jyn. Jyn who was running and for a brief, foolish moment, Cassian forgot exactly who they were and thought that maybe she was running to him. But she barreled into the control panel, jogging him back, and finishing what they had come to Scarif to do. 

And when she pulled the lever, the voice above their heads repeating  _ “transmitting” _ over and over again until the job was done, there was the barest moment when a strange and foreign word floated into Cassian’s mind.  _ Free.  _

His life, his blood, his breaths--all were for the rebellion. Since he was six years old and his memory was painted over with bloody truths. He’d forgotten his  _ before. _ He’d forgotten everything that wasn’t this war. He’d lost himself in it long ago, each bit of his old self dying with every kill. He’d never really thought he’d have a new life after all that he’d done. Hope--when it flared up for anything other than the cause--was a dangerous weed, splitting his focus, and he’d made sure to pluck it out by the roots every time it cropped up. It was fitting, he thought, for a man with no before to have no after. 

He realized then with startling clarity, as the ghost of the Death Star lifted across the horizon and Jyn looked at him with a weary, haggard smile, that he had started to hope for one again. An after. Somewhere, in the cracks of his broken mind, an old thought had slipped in and pinned itself to Jyn. 

It was an after that belonged to a much better man, a more decent one. A man without his scars who wouldn’t be plagued by nightmares of the things he’d done every time he closed his eyes. A man who’d watered the bits of himself still trying to grow instead ripping them out by the stem. 

It was just as well that one thought followed the other. That as soon as he realized he wanted again, he realized he couldn’t. Not for long. Jyn’s missing childhood and her father’s life’s work loomed over head and he remembered Jedha. K2 wasn’t there to swoop a down and get them in a ship, there would be no escape this time.

No escape from Scarif, but, he conceded, a small escape from the iron box he’d built around himself from childhood. Jyn’s hand wrapped around the lever and the force she used to push it up knocked the bolts from the corners, the iron walls slamming down beside his feet. A breath and her worn out smile and one word.  _ Free. _

They couldn’t do any more.  The Death Star looming ever larger on the horizon made sure he knew that. He slumped against the cold metal at his back, relieved that they’d done their mission, but tired and drawn and ready to be done. Done with a life lived for someone else, for something else. 

Ready, for at least a moment, for the cause to go on without him. 

For the foolish hope in the back of his mind to stretch and swell instead of wilt, untended. Jyn caught his eye, and something happened that had never happened to him before. 

Things went his way. 

She walked toward him, a slight limp in her step, but the small, relieved smile still dancing on her lips. He let his arm reach out and wrap around her, not for balance or safety or any reason he might have needed before. Just because he wanted to. And when he closed his eyes as she leaned into him it was to memorize the feel of her side pressed against him, the only thing he wanted for the moments they had left, however few they were. 

She stiffened and his eyes landed on her. Her face was pulled into itself as she stared down at Krennic. He could feel her muscles pulling tight beneath her and knew she was ready, one last job, one last kill, one last revenge. She started pulling away from him, but he caught her arm, holding her tight. 

He didn’t want to let go. 

It would be moments, he thought, only moments and half moments he would be losing if he let her finish it all. But even a single half of a moment was too long for him to give up, there and then. Not when he’d finally let himself want again. Not when the list of what he wanted was whittled down from every rebel cause he’d ever known to a single pair of eyes, staring back at him. 

“Leave it,” he pleaded. He could hear the exhaustion in his voice and he hoped it was a compelling enough argument. He pulled her closer, the tips of his hair dangling down and brushing against the top of her head. She was stiff for another moment, but then she slumped against him. “That’s it.” 

She leaned back into him, and that time, unlike in the too fast days that had passed them by before Scarif, he didn’t try to hide his smile. She looped her arm around him, pressing her side into his as she moved them away from the satellite. 

“Do you think,” he asked her, because he couldn’t stop himself from wondering. “Anyone’s listening?”

Her voice was close when she answered, a warm blanket hugging the skin of his neck. “I do. Someone’s out there.” 

Jyn’s eyes stayed on him as they climbed into the elevator and he kept his locked on hers. Drinking her in. Memorizing each crinkle by her eyes, each freckle on her skin. He could feel his gaze growing heavy with want. It was hard to stop once he had allowed it. Every time he’d locked it away, it had grown, and now it was all tumbling out, bursting from the corners of his mind, and he didn’t want to stop it anymore. 

He wanted her to know. 

“Jyn,” he said. He wished his voice was louder. Stronger. But her cheeks flushed all the same, and he thought maybe it didn’t matter if it was a whisper. 

“Jyn,” he said again. Just because he liked how it tasted on his tongue. “Jyn.” 

He leaned in then, watching her eyes grow wide and hungry with every quarter inch he closed between them. Her hands snaked up his chest, leaving hot streaks up his stomach, his skin scorched beneath the fabric she touched. Her hands, streaked in dirt and grime and blood grasped at the cloth on his chest pulling him rapidly closer. 

“Cassian,” she smiled. He wondered if she just liked the taste of it when she leaned up and whispered it against his lips. “Cassian.” 

The casing in his mind cracked, the weeds sprouting through it, taking over, and he relinquished control. He pressed into her and let the flame grow bigger around his skin, starting from the tips of his toes and making it’s way up until it consumed his whole body. 

He forgot about his injuries, he forgot about the way his body slammed against the metal scaffolding as he’d fallen from the tower of drives. He forgot about all of it as she tilted, leaning against him and let his body shift on top of hers, bracing them against the wall behind her. 

The door opened at the bottom when they got there and Cassian just tipped them out, their feet bumping against one another as he shifted them from the wall within the elevator to the wall without it. Something had stirred in the pit of his stomach halfway down and it pushed him forward. Any part of him absent from her was pressed into her then, and she wrapped herself around him in return, like she was just as desperate as he was. 

Maybe she was. 

Cassian could feel her fingers clawing into his sides, clambering to get him closer though he wasn’t sure there was much room left to give. 

She pulled back for just a moment, her smile from before stretched wide and far away from the mere ghost it had been before. It lit up her face, and Cassian felt the corners of his own mouth pull out to mirror it. 

There would be no rescue this time. He knew that. No ship swooping down to save them in the knick of time like on Jedha. The ray from the Death Star had already hit. They weren’t leaving Scarif. 

But, he thought as looked down at Jyn, breathing raggedly beneath him, smiling like the end was only a passing inconvenience, there was more than one sort of rescue. The walls of iron that had boxed him in lay at the top of the citadel, ready to crumble down with the planet. And as Jyn’s arm worked it’s way around his shoulders, dragging him down onto her shoulder as they hobbled down to the beach together. And one word whispered into his ear as he dropped down in the sand next to her, her fingers lacing into his. 

_ Free.  _

 

**Author's Note:**

> im not sorry 
> 
> tumblr @ofhobbitsandwomen


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